Deficit talks lack clear path to deal

This is all going on as a muddled message comes from Republicans on entitlement reform. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp of Michigan and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan have, in different forms, said that reforming the gigantic programs are all but a conservative pipe dream on the debt ceiling at this point. Camp said he is “not interested in talking about whether the House is going to pass a bill that the Senate shows no interest in,” noting he has no interest in “laying down more markers.” Ryan told reporters this week that he didn’t expect a “grand slam” deal on the debt ceiling.

Cantor, responding to Camp and close ally Ryan’s opinion on entitlement reform, said “that’s their opinion.”

House Speaker John Boehner, who is not part of this specific negotiation but will likely cut a final deal, said, “Let me make this clear: When it comes to increasing the debt limit and the need to have reductions in spending, nothing is off the table except raising taxes.”

And Republican leaders are stuck finding votes for a debt ceiling proposal with little specifics to sell at this point.

If the members of the task force can simply agree to the least controversial elements of the multiple deficit-reduction plans being discussed, such as overall deficit reduction targets over the next decade, they might come away with a bipartisan victory. On Thursday, aides to the members of the group met separately to discuss their common ground and set an agenda for the group’s next meeting, slated for Tuesday.

But a long-term fiscal solution marrying tax hikes with serious entitlement reform seems to be out of the question. Republicans are resigned to the fact that the administration won’t agree to slash Medicare and Medicaid spending in the way envisioned in the budget written by Ryan, and nearly all of the House GOP’s members have signed a pledge that they’ll never vote for a net tax increase.

The participants sat around a table — with Cantor to Biden’s right, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) to his left — in the 186-year-old building across the street from the White House.

Staff was kicked out of the room in the meeting’s opening minutes, and the principals emphasized that they should focus on areas of agreement, rather than the much larger universe of entitlement and tax reforms that divide them.